What was your gateway craft beer?

1990 was my craft beer epiphany, had to have been either Red Hook ESB or Mendocino Red Tail Ale in the Bay Area. Also had a friend who worked for Pete's Wicked Ale in the mid 90's, so we drank a -load of that stuff.

 

Blue Moon was the first beer I had in college that made me realize that there were beers that tasted a lot better than Busch Light. Lagunitas IPA is when I discovered my love of IPAs

 

About 2 1/2 years ago, I was at a restaurant with my sons. My younger son, when he found out what was on tap, said we had to get it. It was New Holland's Dragon's Milk on draft. I'm hooked on craft beers now.

 

Sam Octoberfest and Dogfish 90-minute for IPA's!

 

Back in the mid 1980s, my introduction to craft beer was New Amsterdam Amber. I never had, nor heard of, amber beer, but this was my favorite until I learned there were others brewing beer beyond the big companies and the foreign imports. That introduction to a beer slight darker than the lagers I was used to had a long-lasting impact as stouts and porters continue to be my favorites.

 

Summit Extra Pale Ale. Mark Stutrud started Summit in the Twin Cities when everyone, including the beer associations, told him he'd fail. His EPA is still a winner today!

 

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, summer of 1992 at the Four Seasons restaurant in Yosemite. I asked the waiter what kind of beer they had. He went through the usual suspects and then said they had a newer “local” beer.

I tried it and the rest is history.

 

A bottle of Unibroue's "La Fin Du Monde" in the revolving restaurant atop the tower in Quebec.

 

Anchor Steam!

 

I was not a big drinker in college, so I generally avoided most of the American Light Lager swill that was prevalent at the time. Not too long after graduation, mid 1990, I was fortunate to discover a beer bar that specialized in a lot of imports and also carried a lot of the early craft beers.

I never really cared for Sam Adams. It seemed to me that they were just trying to do Budweiser one better. The one that really caught my interest was Pete's Wicked Ale - an American take on the classic British Pale Ale.

 

Smuttynose Shoals Pale Ale, Spring 1994, Portsmouth Brewery and The Press Room, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

 

Sierra Nevada was the first beer I tried that clearly was better than Bud/Busch/Michelob (I'm from St. Louis, so that was the full range of beer experience). The first craft beer that totally infected me with hop lust was Bell's Two-Hearted, which is still a great IPA.

 

Sam Adams. 1986. However, I drank Macro until 2013, when I tried Blue Point Toasted Lager. I followed that up with a friend insisting we go to this place (while we were working in Palo Alto) to get this Pliny the Elder stuff. That’s all she wrote...

 

Warsteiner Pilsner when I was a 15-year-old on a school exchange in northwestern Germany. Not an American craftbrew but it was my gateway nonetheless.

 

The first turning point was when I finally brought home a few bottles from Unibroue in 2003. I had been looking at them on the shelf of my local store for a while, but for some reason I kept taking home the same old stuff. But when I first tried La Fin Du Monde, Maudite and later Terrible, they were eye openers.

The next big page turner for me was in 2005 when I was given a taste of 2005 Utopias by Sam Adams. I had no idea that beer could be this. I even argued with the person who gave me the taste and told them it wasn't beer. While Utopias is and always will be an extreme example of craft beer, what it did for me was open my eyes to the fact that there is so much more in the beer world than I even knew was possible. From that point on, I made it my mission to try as many different beers as possible and explore every region and style I could get my hands on. The fact that Utopias existed told me that people were trying to push boundaries and I felt compelled to dive head first into this world and see what else was out there... and I've never looked back!

 

Samual Adams Winter Lager - it was the first beer I had where I thought, "Wow, this isn't terrible. This actually tastes good."

It was followed by some delicious nut brown ale I found in my parents' basement that I don't remember the name of, don't know where it came from, and have never seen again. That was followed by Sam Adams Octoberfest.

The following year I set out to try as much beer as I could from the local liquor store. There were a couple misses, but generally it was a great experience. A trip to the Netherlands further broadened my beer horizons, and made me fall in love with Belgian beer.

 

My gateway to craft beer was my homebrew back in the late 70's, then it was a number of years later that Baderbrau and Sam Adams came out.

 

Probably Old Rasputin. At the time, I shopped exclusively at Friar Tuck, and they had these labels on some of their beers with ratings and descriptions. Old Rasputin was always listed as "one of the top 10 beers in the world!" So I bought it. At that time, I'd only drink stouts, so it was right up my alley.

I moved on to Founders Breakfast Stout. Now, I kinda think Rasputin is just an average, still tasty stout. Breakfast Stout is a step above that, but it's still not mind-blowing. So many good local craft beers have surpassed these old-timers.

 

Hennepin, from Ommegang. I was just amazed by its complexity. I remember thinking "Wow, there's some _banana_ flavor in this!"

 

In late 70's it was Genesee 12 Horse Ale, Moosehead and Molson Brador.
In 1980's graduated to Grolsch, then Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Pete's Wicked. Moved back to New England and discovered Sam Adams. I remember getting 15 shares of stock with a six pack. I wonder where those shares went?